ctype_print() best solution for UTF-8 characters

Question

In PHP, what is the best approach to let ctype_print() (or is this not possible?) work with UTF-8? Currently when I use it with some UTF-8 characters it fails, for example:

ctype_print("Curaçao");

(after the Dutch independent island Curaçao) returns false.

Thanks in advance for your time and help.

Ambrotype

This thread talk about this issue and they offer solutions, here – Cultivation

Answer 1

There is a PCRE/POSIX regular expression character class that matches any printable characters (reference). When used with the u modifier, it will match any UTF-8 printable characters:

[:print:] This matches the same characters as [:graph:] plus space characters that are not controls, that is, characters with the Zs property.

If you are only interested in glyphs and spaces count as no-no, you would use:

[:graph:] This matches characters that have glyphs that mark the page when printed. In Unicode property terms, it matches all characters with the L, M, N, P, S, or Cf properties

Then, your regular expression would look like:

preg_match('~^[[:print:]]+$~u', $string)

And a possible function would look like:

function is_utf8_printable($string): bool {
    return (bool) preg_match('~^[[:print:]]+$~u', $string);
}

This will tell you whether all characters, from the ^ beginning to the $ end of the string, match the :print: character class. Please see here for several test string iterations.

Skeens

@Petah any follow-up on this oldie you resurrected? (OP hasn't been around for ages.) – Skeens

Answer 2

The ctype_print functions use ASCII symbols only:

Its a wrapper over C isprint function

Use regex

function ctype_print_utf(string $string): bool
{
    return preg_match('/[[:cntrl:]]/', $string) === 0;
}

Chyme

Doesn't seem to work: 3v4l.org/L9CW9 – Unbodied

Works as ctype_print: 3v4l.org/N6NRK – Chyme

Answer 3

You can try use code bellow:

function ctype_print_unicode($input) {
    return preg_match("~^[\pL\pN\s\"\~". preg_quote("!#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}´") ."]+$~u", $input);
}

print ctype_print_unicode('Curaçao');

Ouput:

1

Callow

3v4l.org/bGbMl – Unbodied